Breaking Free
by AlisonHT
Summary: One day, two troubled and unhappy individuals decide that the time has come for them to combat their demons and live again. Hermione is trapped in a life she never wanted, Draco is trapped in a prison of his own choosing. Can they help themselves to have the life they deserve and help each other find happiness?
1. Chapter 1: Decisions

A/N: This is my first attempt at writing anything like this so I hope you like it! The next chapter will make things a lot clearer; this is hopefully just a little teaser... And obviously, I do not own anything Harry Potter related.

Enjoy!

...

**Chapter 1. Decisions**

Hermione was cold.

She was always cold.

It wasn't just a physical coldness she felt; it was an emotional numbness, a sense that she was detached from the world around her. Even when she was in the warmest room or on the hottest day she felt this coldness in her core, a feeling that she would never be fully warm or truly happy again.

She sat curled up in the windowseat, her book resting on her lap, and gazed at the bright world outside. Even seeing the sun sparkle on the river as it flowed by the house failed to rouse her from her reverie, her thoughts running over and over the same ground, trying to work out where it had all gone wrong. How something which had seemed so right years before could have gone so terribly wrong.

She knew she was smart and intelligent; it was the one thing about herself she valued. Even though, logically, she knew that the situation she found herself in didn't mean she was stupid, that it could happen to anyone, she worried that others would wonder how the 'brightest witch of her age' could make such a mistake. That no-one could understand that she'd reached the point of no return before even realising there was a problem.

In fact, the expectations that came from being part of the 'Golden Trio' made it all so much harder. How could anyone understand that beneath the surface of her famed intelligence and her perfect, fairy tale life, that she could feel so dark and empty? To everyone else it looked as though she had it all; she could hardly admit to herself how bad things had got, how much of her life was a facade of smiles and presenting the Hermione people expected to see.

Her only true escape were her books. She could still pick up a novel or a text book and emerge herself in it, finally feeling something like her true self. But even this freedom never lasted that long; too often she was called to do something or was told she was wasting her time and shirking her responsibilities.

She had no-one to talk to either. No-one who she could unburden herself to, who would understand and appreciate what she was going through, who would support her unconditionally. She knew that if she tried to broach the subject with anyone around her she would be told she was being silly, sensitive, what had she to complain about? She knew they would never take her side and she had never felt so alone.

She wondered what would happen if she just disappeared one day. Just stopped and ran away. Just gave up. Would anyone care for the actual loss of her? Or just for the role she played in their lives? Would they finally pick up on her unhappiness and dig beneath the facade? Or would they just say that she had over-reacted, made a fuss over nothing, wasn't worth the upset?

Hermione shook herself firmly. That was not the way. She was a Gryffindor and they faced their problems head on. Bravely. She couldn't let them win; this was not her fault and she deserved to be happy and to live the life she wanted to live.

As she sat there she felt as though something clicked in her brain. She was not going to put up with this any longer. She needed to be brave; she needed to remember who she was and to stand up for herself.

Today was the day when she would start to fix her life. To warm herself up again.

Today was the day.

...

Draco was bored.

He was always bored.

He stood in front of the mirror and wondered, as he did every day, why he had bothered to get dressed. What was the point, when no-one would see him? But only people who were unwell didn't get dressed and he was perfectly fine. Perfectly.

He spent all his days inside the four walls of his home, wandering from room to room, a prisoner through his own choice. After his enforced imprisonment here had come to an end, he had simply continued in the same way. For what else could he do with his life now? The world had turned against him and in response he had turned away from them. Why should he engage with them when they had so clearly showed they didn't want him? In this house at least he knew where he was, there were no expectations or questions and he could do as he wanted.

He felt safe here. Safe from the idiots out there who felt they had the right to judge him. Or worse, thought they could help him. He didn't need their help, their interference in his life; it wasn't as though they cared, was it? They were trying to make themselves feel better with their supposed well meaning intrusion. One by one he had pushed them away. Used the infamous Malfoy sarcasm and rudeness. Stopped answering the door. Didn't return their owls. He didn't care. The only person he could trust was himself, Draco Malfoy.

He may be bored with nothing really to do but this was vastly preferable to having to deal with people. The only time he truly felt engaged with anything now was when he read; he had new books delivered every week and they were piled up around the walls of his rooms. But even they couldn't fill all the hours of all the days and he spent a lot of time just lying on his sofa. He'd developed an ability to switch off his brain and could stare at the ceiling for hours in a trance, so it wasn't really that bad, was it?

The world outside was now an unknown to him. He sometimes summoned up the energy to leave the confines of his house but he found he gained nothing from these trips except annoyance at everything and everyone and so he'd returned home and locked the door again. As time went on these trips became shorter and shorter, and longer and longer went between each one. The last one must have been...oh...seven...no, nine months ago.

But he wasn't scared of the outside world, he told himself firmly as he looked himself in the eye, no, not at all. It was just that he didn't need to go out. There was no reason for him to do so, that was it. If he needed to he would be perfectly fine.

For a split second he felt sure his reflection was laughing at him. The Malfoy in the mirror seemed to raise his eyebrows, challenging him, questioning him.

He sighed and walked determinedly away from the mirror. Fine, maybe he did have a problem. A small one. Nothing insurmountable. Easily fixed.

Today was the day he would go outside, go for a walk, a coffee. Prove to himself he could.

Today was the day.


	2. Chapter 2: Waiting

Hermione waited to see what mood he would be in when he came home.

After all this time together, she could sense whether he was angry or upset just from the way he landed in the fireplace. Even if she was in another room, she would hear him arrive and knew instantly whether the evening would be spent trying to soothe him and prevent yet another argument or whether there was a chance that they might have a relaxed meal, happy and laughing as they had been when they were younger.

She had always thought that she and Ron were meant for each other. They had grown up together and been friends for years, they had been through so much together, they had a history which bound them to each other irrevocably. With someone else the transition to a romantic relationship might not have worked, but when they had **_finally_** kissed during the Final Battle it had seemed like everything had aligned and was just Meant-To-Be. Early on in their relationship, she had sometimes thought she would have liked Ron to share her love of books and knowledge and want to have in-depth and intellectual discussions with her, but she had been so happy to be with him that she had put these thoughts to one side and put her faith in the old adage that opposites attract.

After the war was over, the adjustment had been difficult for them all. There were some days when she could hardly drag herself out of bed; the enormity of what had happened hitting her like a wall. When she and Ron and Harry had actually been in the depths of the war, searching for horcruxes, running from Voldemort, the adrenaline had kept them going. None of them had really stopped to consider the magnitude of what they were doing, the danger they were in, the importance to the world of their mission. Looking back, she thought that if they had they might just have crumbled under the weight and the pressure. Instead they had kept pushing, planning, fighting, doing what was needed to, what they had to do. It was only when it was all over that the anxiety and stress came and the reality of what they had accomplished almost overwhelmed them. It hadn't helped that the press and the general public hardly gave them a moment to process what had happened, to grieve for their lost friends and family, to mourn for their lost childhoods. For months she had been a quivering wreck, jumping at the slightest sound, finding herself in tears over the smallest thing.

So when Ron's attitude towards her started to slowly change she had simply put it down to post-war adjustment, his grieving for his brother, and her being overly sensitive. During her year back in Hogwarts, whilst Ron was working at the Ministry, their weekends together began to be peppered with him criticising her; for her appearance, for her not replying to his owls quickly enough, for her post-war tears or for her not behaving as he expected her to. His moods would change in a flash; one minute they'd be kissing and cuddling together on the sofa, the next he would be shouting at her and calling her an idiot. She'd never entirely know what she'd said on done to trigger these episodes, and when she'd argue back and stand her ground somehow it always ended up with her being in the wrong and apologising.

But she loved him, with all her heart. He needed her and she needed him; she reassured herself that things would improve, when she left Hogwarts and were living their real lives, as the war and its impact faded into the past, into something manageable even though it would never disappear. Even so, she started putting more effort into taming her hair and dressing to please him, rushing to answer his owls or get something he wanted, hiding her own feelings – anything to make him happy, help him deal with his grief. She began holding her tongue so she wouldn't annoy him by being too smart or argumentative, for having a different opinion to him, for suggesting he might need to speak to someone outside of their close-knit group, someone neutral, who would help him come to terms with the horrors they had endured.

It wasn't as if they didn't share happy times together, when they laughed and danced around the kitchen of their new flat, when they went on holidays or out for dinner, when they talked about their time together at Hogwarts, before the war. But these were interspersed with increasing regularity with periods of strain and drama, of arguments and tears. He seemed to expect her to think and behave as his mother did, and whilst she loved Molly Weasley, who had been a surrogate mum to her for so long, she was never going to be that sort of homely woman, nor was she going to do everything for Ron and pander to his every need. She expected a relationship of equals, as her parents had, but as the years passed Ron became increasingly traditional in his attitude towards their relationship.

Underlying it all there was a sense that she was lucky and should be grateful for his love – she'd never been pretty or popular, she'd never been the girl that boys looked at or wanted to date. Instead, she was the bushy-haired, socially awkward swot who men didn't seem to see in a romantic light. The fact that Ron loved her and wanted to be with her had always surprised her and as time went on she convinced herself that no-one else ever would have and that without Ron she'd be alone.

Eight years after the war, Ron had proposed to her and she had accepted with great joy and happiness. She hoped that the fact that he had finally proposed meant that the dark, post-war years were over and that they could start their new life together without that strain. But not long after the wedding – which was the happiest and sunniest of days – the problems resurfaced with a vengeance. Everything she did was wrong, he'd turn angry at the slightest thing, blame the smallest thing on her, shout at her for trying to defend herself against his barrage, tell her she was a pain, that's she'd let him down, that she didn't care or support him. And as time went by she blamed herself, walked on egg-shells around him, pandered to his every need – anything to make him happy with her.

She knew his behaviour was wrong, but she didn't know what to do about it. She had no-one to talk to about it – she knew her parents would be horrified and she couldn't bring herself to feel their pity and their concern. And she'd never really had friends who were just hers – they were always friends to the entire 'Golden Trio'. When she'd tried to do make friends that were hers alone, Ron had complained at her leaving him alone for an evening. If she went out for drinks with friends from work she'd find the protean charmed galleon in her pocket glaring hot within an hour, with Ron asking where she was and when she was coming home. If he came out with her, he'd frowned at everything anyone said, not engage with anyone and generally made the evening so uncomfortable for everyone that they'd leave early. After a while, she had just stopped going out and trying to have new friends, preferring to avoid the arguments that were bound to follow. So they just spent time with the Potters and the Weasleys, her presenting her happy, competent, together façade, whilst wondering how she had got to this position.

She heard him land in the fireplace. He swore.

Her heart sank.


End file.
